Recent MTG REALM Posts

12.26.2012

We have yet another new Gatecrash spoiler today over on the mothersite and we have to say, we've been enjoying every day this week. Yestday we started our tradition spoiler list where we will be posting every new Gatecrash card, so click on over here.

If you cannot immediately find today's special Gatecrash spoiler on the page, click on the present appearing on MaRo's article banner to open. Today's new game card is appropriately red and green and features the new Boros guild mechanic.

Let's have a look now at the new Boros keyword -

Whenever (creature name) and at least two other creatures attack, (creature name) deals 3 damage to target creature or player and you gain 3 life.

Firemane Avenger, 2RWCreature - Angel, RareFlyingBattalion - Whenever Firemane Avenger and at least two other creatures attack, Firemane Avenger deals 3 damage to target creature or player and you gain 3 life.Firemane Nevana led the victorious assualt on the Barbu Rooftop rebels. Now the Gateless have marked her for death.Illustrated by Wayne Reynolds #163/249

~Well lets have a look - Four mana for a 3/3 flyer is good. Then there's the ability. Almost similar to that of the M13 legendary creature Odric, Master Tactician in that a condition of the ability is to have creatures on the game table ans swinging on in for an attack. On top of this is a Lightning Helix ability of 3 pain to creature or player with 3 points of life gained.

The issue here is really to have Firemane and two other friends attack which may be difficult to accomplish sometimes especially with Supreme Verdict in standard. That being said, this card is being played in an environment with Lingering Souls / Midnight Haunting, which is our way to say that we can easily see a Boros tokens being a standard deck. For limited, this would be as useful as playing a potato in a Magic: the Gathering game which we can't really see as we feel that there will in all likihood be an token-generating instant or sorcery card to be printed.

Also - a word about lifegain. Although we agree that a standard lifegain deck really is not a top tier competitive strategy, lifegain is not irrelevant and if sprinkled into a 60-card stack rather strategically, can assist in winning games. A card such as Firemane Avenger increasing the difference in lifetotals to 6, which in our books is rather decent.

Tune in again to MTG Realm as we churn through all the Gatecrash spoilers coming our way and we suggest you may want to start planning your purchase of existing cards in print which may support your new Gatecrash Guild. We are keeping a list of cards we want from MTG Mint Card we'll get sooner than later before price spikes or availability become an issue.~

1 comment:

Sweet. Now every time I look at a Boros card with this mechanic, I'm gonna imagine an ideal situation where the first sneak peek card Aurelia, is one of the attacking creatures. If this card is any indication Aurelia is definitely a must have for any Boros deck strategy. That's a 6 damage to creature or player and 6 life gain, a potential of a whopping 12 life difference in one turn.

And Aurelia having haste makes this all that much sweeter in my opinion, since you can use that one turn she hits the field to really turn things around as long as Firemane Avenger and one other creature were already waiting.

Definitely looking forward to picking up a intro pack for Boros and Simic. Here's hoping that these preveiw cards so far are the intro pack foils. They seem like the perfect cards to be used as the foils, great to showcase the full potential of each guild.

I also just realized something that may or may not be pretty relevant in terms of how this set and the other two guild mechanics will work. So far every mechanic previewed have been creature mechanics. In Return to Ravnica there was only one pure creature mechanic with Azorious being seen on both creatures and enchants, and selesnya having a mechanic that was rarely on a creature.

Granted now that I think about it, Gruul could possibly be seen on non-creature cards, since the ability itself does not specify anything that would require the card to be a creature. The +X/+X is based on land count, and you are discarding the card from your hand to use the ability definitely not a creature only ability based on it's wording.